Utica woman gets 18 months for faking son's cancer

Tuesday

May 6, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 7, 2014 at 7:56 AM

Emily Creno, 32, of Utica, was sentenced yesterday to prison for 18 months after pleading no contest to charges of theft and endangering children. Licking County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Marcelain also ordered her to pay back nearly $3,000 to the people - some of them strangers - who heard about a dying little boy in Utica and opened their wallets.

Lori Kurtzman, The Columbus Dispatch

NEWARK, Ohio — She thought tragedy might win him back. She’d tell everyone their son had cancer, and then her husband would return, and then he’d love her again, and then JJ would miraculously heal.

“It’s a maybe wrong way, maybe confused way, but she wanted to save her marriage,” said Emily Creno’s attorney, Christopher Cooper. “It just really got out of control for her.”

Creno, 32, of Utica, was sentenced yesterday to prison for 18 months after pleading no contest to charges of theft and endangering children. Licking County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Marcelain also ordered her to pay back nearly $3,000 to the people — some of them strangers — who heard about a dying little boy in Utica and opened their wallets.

The mother of two claimed her then-4-year-old son, John, who goes by JJ, suffered from a rare form of cancer.

It was a lie that grew more elaborate by the day. She shaved his head and made him wear a mask in public. He underwent more than 20 blood tests and six radiographic studies at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

He spent about 150 hours over four months undergoing inpatient EEG monitoring and was prescribed medication for seizures based on Creno’s claims. No test revealed any abnormality.

Prosecutors said there was nothing wrong with JJ, who is now 5. He has been living with his father’s parents, Cooper said.

“This was more than a plan to get your husband back that got out of hand,” Marcelain said in court yesterday. “You let your child believe he was going to die.”

JJ’s fake cancer appeared soon after Creno’s marital troubles seemed to peak. In late 2012, Creno filed for a protection order against her husband, John Creno, writing in Licking County Domestic Relations Court records that “John fired a gun at me while my son was on my lap.” She said he also choked her. The order was granted.

Weeks later, John Creno wrote to the court about his son’s now-frequent hospital visits and apparent cancer diagnosis. He asked for access to JJ’s medical records and doctors. He said he’d lost his mother to cancer the previous year, and “I don’t want to just sit by while my son has the same condition and do nothing.”

There was no cancer, of course. Emily Creno continued to embellish her son’s sympathetic story, building on the boy’s breathing issues until JJ became a terminally sick kid, a cause.

Some donors gave her as much as $400 apiece. People who knew that the boy aspired to be a police officer sent him department patches.

“This is a parent’s worst nightmare,” said Licking County Assistant Prosecutor Brian Waltz. “The crime she committed, it was awful.”

Another mother — one whose child actually has leukemia — read about JJ’s plight online, and none of it seemed right. She alerted Utica police, who investigated and issued a warrant for Creno’s arrest in May 2013. Creno overdosed on pills in an apparent suicide attempt and wasn’t arrested until September.

She’s been in the Licking County jail ever since, which means she’s already served nearly half of her sentence.

Yesterday, Emily Creno appeared deflated in court, her hair greasy and pulled back, her knee bouncing nervously as she awaited her sentencing. She said few words, telling the judge that she was on medication for mental-health issues, apologizing, asking for a second chance.

Her estranged husband sat in the courtroom and didn’t speak. He left quickly, avoiding the crush of media outside. A reporter asked Cooper whether Emily Creno’s desperate attempt to woo back her husband ever worked, even for a minute.

“Does it ever work?” he said.

lkurtzman@dispatch.com

@LoriKurtzman

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